A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components (e.g., storage systems). Data centers typically provide high reliability and security and typically include resources shared by multiple clients of the data center operator. Large data centers are industrial scale operations using as much electricity as a small town. Various data centers may utilize virtualization. For example, a data center may implement multiple virtual machines (VMs), e.g., virtual servers, using a physical server or node in the data center. In this example, each VM may execute an operating system and other software, where each VM may appear as a physical server to end users.
Generally, when one or more VMs are implemented on a physical server, a hypervisor is used to manage and facilitate the VMs. For example, a hypervisor can emulate various hardware features available to the VMs. In this example, software (e.g., an operating system) executing on the VM may have access to hardware, such as video, keyboard, storage, and/or network interfaces, emulated by the hypervisor. The hypervisor may also segregate the VMs from each other such that an operation within one VM is kept within that VM and is not visible to or modifiable from another VM.
When testing data center equipment, it is important to make sure that testing mimics real world scenarios and conditions. For example, when testing a data center server, it may be necessary to mimic or emulate resources in the data center. However, conventional testing of such equipment requires manufacturers to use the same scale of equipment that is found in a data center, which can require substantial resources, e.g., tens of millions of dollars or more and a significant amount of time to configure such equipment.
Accordingly, in light of these difficulties, a need exists for methods, systems, and computer readable media for emulating virtualization resources.